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Zusatztext The hour of capitalism's greatest triumph is! in the eyes of four-fifths of humanity! its hour of crisis. Beginning with these words! Hernando de Soto's book sets out to revolutionize our understanding of what capital is and why! since the collapse of communism! capitalism has continued to fail the majority of mankind. Five years ago! de Soto and his research team closed their books and opened their eyes. They went into the streets of developing and former communist nations to collect new facts and figures about what real people are achieving inside and outside the underground economy. Their findings are dramatic. The data they have collected demonstrate that the world's poor have accumulated the assets necessary for successful capitalism; the value of their savings is immense: many times all the foreign aid and investment received since 1945. In Egypt alone the assets of the poor are fifty-five times greater than all foreign investment ever recorded! including the funding of the Suez Canal and the Aswan Dam. Why then are these countries so underdeveloped? The major stumbling block is that they don't know how to turn these assets into liquid capital - the kind of capital that generates new wealth. How is that done? For Hemando de Soto this is 'the mystery of capital'. With elegance and clarity he produces an answer of dazzling originality. The Western nations! he argues! created the secret conversion process 150 years ago and their economies began to soar into wealth without their ever realizing what they had done. De Soto explains how this unwitting process! hidden deep in thousands of pieces of property law throughout the West! came to be! how it works! and how today it can be deliberately set up in developing and former communist nations. The inequitable distribution of global wealth and exponential increase in poverty have leapt to the top of the political agenda for world leaders. De Soto reminds us that this is the same kind of crisis that the advanced nations suffered during the industrial revolution! when they were also Third World countries teeming with black markets! pervasive mafias! widespread poverty and flagrant disregard of the law. The Mystery of Capital is an inspired! timely book of international importance that provides a constructive proposal for bringing the benefits of capitalism to the very people who hitherto have been seen as its victims. Informationen zum Autor Hernando De Soto Klappentext But if the criteria for joining that exclusive club is a capacity not only to change permanently the way we look at the world, but also to change the world itself, then there are good grounds for thinking that this book is surely a contender.' Donald Macintyre, The Independent'Few people in Britain have heard of Hernando de Soto . Zusammenfassung But if the criteria for joining that exclusive club is a capacity not only to change permanently the way we look at the world, but also to change the world itself, then there are good grounds for thinking that this book is surely a contender.' Donald Macintyre, The Independent'Few people in Britain have heard of Hernando de Soto ....
